


Anthology

by paperstorm



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Just so much schmoop, M/M, POV Outsider, Schmoop, Warning for brief homophobic language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 03:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4772294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael's mum watches him fall in love with Luke, like in a John Green novel - slowly and then all at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anthology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rollercoastar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rollercoastar/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Anthology](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9387032) by [RiaPush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaPush/pseuds/RiaPush)



The door slams. It makes the whole house shake. Karen looks up. Michael storms in, looking thunderous. He drops his backpack down on the table and flops down into a chair, arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows stitched together. He looks like clipart of someone in a bad mood. Like a stock photo.  
  
“How was your day?” Karen asks, already knowing the answer. Michael just glares. He’s moody lately. Karen supposes that’s what it means to be fourteen. He’s still her sweet boy somewhere underneath, he just hides it well most days. “Okay, bad. Why was it bad?”  
  
“There’s this fuckin’ kid,” Michael mutters.  
  
“Language!” Karen admonishes, swatting Michael on the shoulder. “What did he do?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
   
“Baby.” It’s ridiculous that he’s even bothering. He wouldn’t be sitting here pouting about it if the boy hadn’t done anything.  
  
“Nothing! He’s just. He’s annoying. And he’s in all my classes, and Cal isn’t even in all my classes.”  
   
Karen sits next to him and pats his arm. He has a tendency to be dramatic, although she won’t say that. It wouldn’t help. “You knew Calum wouldn’t be in all your classes.” Michael’s best friend for years, but everything is different at a new school.   
  
“Yeah, but, I won’t have him to be my wing-man if Luke tries to talk to me again.”  
  
Karen presses her lips together and memorizes the offender’s name for future reference.  _Luke_. “Was he mean to you?”  
  
Michael scoffs loudly, insulted at the very suggestion. “ _No_. I just don’t like him.”  
  
“So don’t be friends with him. You don’t have to like everyone.”  
  
“He’s blond.”  
  
“So are you.”  
   
“No, he’s like  _blond_  blond. And his eyes are blue and girls like him.”  
  
Karen nods and tries not to let it show that the truth just came out. “Girls will like you, honey. You’re funny and you’re nice and you’re handsome.”  
   
“Not like him,” Michael mumbles.   
  
“You don’t need to be like him. You’re like you, Baby Bear.”  
  
Michael rolls his eyes and doesn’t return her matching nickname. He rarely does, these days. Too cool for it, now. He mutters, “That’s stupid,” and doesn’t wait for a response before he’s snatching up his backpack and skulking off in the direction of his room.   
  
Karen smiles to herself because, as much as she doesn’t like when Michael is upset, he’s cute when he’s pouting. She goes back to fixing dinner, and gives it a week before Michael forgets the entire thing.  
   
*           *           *  
  
She’s very, very wrong. He doesn’t forget it for nearly a year. Every other day it’s Luke did this and Luke said that. Luke made everyone laugh in maths and it was stupid. Luke’s dating the girl Michael just broke up with – although Karen would hardly call what they had a relationship. Luke said hello to Calum and smiled like they were friends and Calum is Michael’s friend so naturally Luke isn’t allowed to even know his name. Karen nods and listens and sympathizes and doesn’t comment that Michael spends a whole lot of time thinking about a person he claims not to like. It’s way overdone, but Karen remembers being his age. Small things seem so important.  
   
When Michael comes home one day and announces that Luke plays the guitar and is pretty good at it – although, he makes sure to add, not as good as Michael, but has a better singing voice – and that they’re going to play together some time, he looks at Karen like he’s daring her to say something. To point out that he’s spent a year hating this boy, and subjecting her to near constant complaining about him. His jaw is set and his eyes are narrowed, teenage aggression in his face that says G _o ahead. Do it._  Karen thinks it but knows way better than to say it out loud.  
  
  
*           *           *  
  
Out of nowhere, Luke almost lives at their house. Karen had never so much as seen a photograph of the boy and then he’s around all the time. There’s always music, from two acoustic guitars, and shy, tentative voices. Karen didn’t know Michael could sing, but he can. The first time Karen meets Luke, she sort of understands the initial rivalry. He’s beachy-blond and blue eyed and enviably talented. He’s quiet and sweet in a way that begs you to take care of him. He’s the sort of person it would be easy to hate, if you weren’t so thrilled with yourself, and Michael has secret ideas, sometimes, about the way he is and the way he wishes he was. Karen can see how this happened. She can see why Michael would decide Luke is better than him, even if it isn’t true.   
  
Mostly, she can see that she was right all along, and Michael never hated Luke. Not for one minute.  
  
Karen doesn’t see Calum for months. She never saw him all that much anyway, Michael’s always been a bit of a lone wolf, but for all Karen could know they aren’t even friends anymore. Everything is Luke. For as much as she had to hear about him when he was making Michael angry, she hears his name twice as much now. Luke said something so funny. Luke likes Greenday too, Mum! It never stops. Karen doesn’t mind, but it wouldn’t matter if she did. Michael’s always been that way. He’s quiet and withdrawn in nature but when he gets a bee in his bonnet about something there’s no shutting him up until he’s good and ready. The number of hour-long conversations Karen has had to endure about this band or that anime show, that she couldn’t possibly care about if she tried, but it’s more than worth it to listen and nod along just to see Michael’s eyes light up the way they do when he cares that much about something. And he cares that much about Luke.  
   
From enemies to best friends, it’s like the beginning of a romantic comedy. Michael would likely never speak to Karen again if she made him aware of the similarities.  
   
*           *           *  
  
Luke starts spending nights in their home sometimes. At first Karen helped Michael blow up an air mattress and set it up with a pillow and a sleeping bag on his floor for Luke to sleep on, but he never did. The next morning Karen would find the makeshift bed untouched, except the pillow had been moved to the spot next to Michael’s, so she stopped. If they want to squish into Michael’s twin bed, let them.  
  
One time, Michael comes home with dirt on his clothes and bruises on his cheek. Karen nearly drops the vase in her hands when she sees him. “What happened?” she cries.   
  
“You should see the other guy,” Michael jokes, but darkly in a way that makes her think he isn’t actually kidding around.  
  
“Michael!”  
  
“Someone called Luke a faggot, okay?” Michael snaps, instantly defensive. “And he started crying, so I punched him. The other guy, not Luke.”  
  
“You got into a fight?” she demands angrily. Michael gets into a lot of trouble at school lately, for ditching class or being rude to teachers, but he’s never put his hands on another student before. Karen thought she raised him better than that.  
  
“He was an asshole!” Michael spreads his arms out. “And he was mean to Luke!”  
  
“I’m happy you stood up for your friend, but you could have gotten expelled!”  
  
“Well I didn’t,” Michael replies moodily, being a teenager about it, so Karen lets the issue fall for now. They’ll continue this discussion when he isn’t worked up. Solving conflicts with fists is  _not_  something that’s going to be considered acceptable in this house.  
  
There’s a knock on the door later and it’s Luke. He looks smaller than usual, and he’s already small, and Michael pulls him inside and wraps him up in a hug that takes Karen by surprise. It’s so tight. It isn’t the way friends are supposed to hug each other.  
  
“Thanks Mikey,” Luke’s voice says, minute and muffled by Michael’s shoulder.   
  
“Fuck Braden,” Michael answers.   
  
Karen doesn’t get on his case about the swear word this time. “I’m sorry for what that boy said to you,” she tells Luke, as he and Michael walk past her on their way to Michael’s bedroom.   
  
Luke shrugs listlessly and doesn’t answer. He’s tucked under Michael’s arm, protectively. Michael’s gripping him tightly, shielding him from the entire world, even though it’s just the three of them in the kitchen.  
   
*           *           *  
   
Michael tells her they’re starting a band in the spring. He and Luke have been playing songs together and recording them and putting them on the internet, he says. Karen didn’t know that. Michael never said anything. Suddenly Calum is around again, with an acoustic guitar as well and then with an old, beat-up bass that he fumbles through learning to play. They’re good, though. They cover songs she hasn’t heard, music Michael used to listen to with his headphones on and his door closed, and they’ve got talent. Michael is different since Luke became a permanent fixture in his life, too. He’s more open, more social, less cooped up in his own head. He smiles again. More often than not, those smiles are sent in Luke’s direction, but it makes Karen glad regardless because Michael is  _happy_  in a way he wasn’t before.  
  
A boy with flat-ironed honey-colored hair and dimples called Ashton joins them just before Christmas, and Karen likes him a lot. He’s a little older, and he’s as silly and excitable as the rest of them but he has a quiet maturity about him. Karen feels like he’ll take care of the rest of them. They start playing shows, in Sydney, and they actually have  _fans_. It isn’t a pipe dream, they’re really doing this. Karen doesn’t know whether to be proud or terrified. She goes to see them sometimes, and is taken aback at how good they are. Michael is an entirely new person up there, happy and glowing, lit up from the inside. He’s so beautiful on stage it takes Karen’s breath away.  
   
“Are you having fun?” Karen asks, the day after a show at a bar in Sydney none of them are old enough to get into.  
   
Michael’s eyes sparkle in a way they haven’t since he was small. “So much. This is what I always wanted to do.”  
   
“Why didn’t I know that?”  
   
Eyes roll. “Mum.”  
   
Karen laughs. “Okay, fine. Is Luke coming over tonight?” It’s a rarity when a day goes by that Karen doesn’t see him. He’s almost become her second son.  
   
Michael blushes a little, and nods. Karen doesn’t point it out. She wonders, sometimes, about the reasons behind reactions like that. Sometimes she even thinks she’s figured out a thing or two. She wishes he would tell her, so she could know for sure. He used to tell her everything.  
   
*           *           *  
   
Michael comes to her one day in the summer, excitement making his voice crack and beautiful sparkles in his green eyes, to say they’ve been given a chance to go on tour with One Direction, the biggest pop band in the world, and then move to London so they can write and release an album. Karen is thrilled for him, and also so nervous. Michael has never even been on a plane before. He’s never been further away from home than half a day’s drive, and certainly not on his own. And he won’t be on his own, Luke will be there, and Cal and Ashton, who as far as Karen can tell seems the most responsible of the bunch, but even still.  
   
He’s so young, they all are, and Karen watches the news. She sees what happens to young, American stars when they get too famous too fast. There’s no guarantee anything will ever come of this for them, but Michael’s always been easily influenced. And he’s sensitive, more sensitive than he lets on because he wants to appear cool on the outside. Karen doesn’t like to think what could happen to a boy like him, if he was given money and fame and freedom and wasn’t taught how to properly handle it. Karen gives him the congratulations he deserves, but still says she’ll have to think about it. It’s a decision that can’t be made on a whim. Predictably, Michael rolls his eyes.  
   
“I’m so proud of you, Baby Bear,” she tells him, making sure he knows her hesitation is coming from a place of love and concern, not that she doesn’t want him to live his dream. She hugs him, and he returns it, squeezing tight and hunching over to press his face into her neck.  
   
“Thanks, Mama Bear.”  
  
She meets, a few nights later, with Joy and Luke’s mum Liz and Ashton’s mum who she’s never met before but learns is called Anne-Marie and has the same deep dimples as Ashton does. Sixteen is too young to be so far away from home on his own, Liz says of her son, the youngest in the group, so if the boys go, she’s going with them. That makes Karen feel better. At least with one of them there, the boys won’t be so susceptible to bad influences. Michael needs mothering, as much as he resists it, so if Karen can’t do it herself, she’s happy it will be Liz.  
  
The four of them are ecstatic when they get permission to go. They all celebrate at the Hemmings house because it’s the biggest. Luke’s brothers both hit on Calum’s sister – who, admittedly, is beautiful – and Ashton’s two much younger siblings are like puppies, lost in a sea of people more than twice their height and soaked in attention because they’re cute.  
   
“Will it be hard to leave?” Karen asks Ashton, when they end up sitting alone together on the patio. Michael was with them until a moment ago when Luke called his name from across the yard and he was off like a shot. Ashton sighed in fond exasperation at that – he’s noticed, too, the way Michael is so tethered to Luke. The way Michael looks at their lead singer like he hung the moon and all the stars.  
   
Karen’s question refers to Ashton’s brother and sister; both significantly younger than him, and in some ways like his children rather than siblings. She’s heard all about it from Michael, how Ashton’s father took off and Ashton has become more than a brother to them as a consequence.  
   
Ashton shrugs a little. As much as he’s giggly and full of life in a group, one-on-one he’s shy. “I guess.”  
   
“They really look up to you.”  
   
“You don’t have to make it worse,” Ashton jokes, but he isn’t really joking. He’s just laughing through it.  
   
“I’m sorry.”  
   
Another shrug. “It’s fine. It won’t be forever. Besides this is like … it’s the dream, right? It must be for Mike, too.”  
   
They both look over at the sound of loud laughter; Michael and Luke have acquired brightly colored water pistols from somewhere and are chasing each other around the backyard. Calum is looking in Ashton’s direction, silently asking for assistance with their bandmates, but Ashton just smiles at all of them.  
   
“Could you do me a favor?” Karen asks, waiting for hazel eyes to meet hers before she continues. It’s too much to ask of him, she knows, but she’s so anxious about Michael going so far away where she can’t keep him safe. “Look out for Michael? I know you’re only a year older, but he needs … someone.”  
   
Ashton nods and takes her hand, squeezing it. “We’re all gonna look out for each other. No one gets left behind, okay? We’re in this together.”  
   
Karen nods too, and feels a little better.  
   
Back at home later, just as Karen is turning off the lights and about to head to bed, she hears voices and wanders down the hall to investigate. On the other side of Michael’s closed door, two different voices speak in hushed tones. One is Michael’s. The other, Karen recognizes after a moment, is Luke’s. She doesn’t know how Luke ended up in Michael’s bedroom. He was at his own house when they left it an hour ago. He must have snuck in through the window. Karen wonders if it’s the first time.  
  
“We did it, Mikey,” Luke says, sounding excited and scared.   
  
“We’re getting out of this town,” Michael answers, the tilt of his voice indicating it’s a joke Karen doesn’t understand. “That’s so pop punk.”  
  
Luke laughs, but then he says, “I’m sorta terrified. Is that stupid?”  
  
“No,” Michael says quickly, reassuring his friend. “I am too. But this is gonna be amazing, okay? And you’ve got me, right? Always. No matter what happens with this whole thing, it’s always gonna be you and me.”  
  
“Can I stay?” Luke asks in a quiet voice. “I don’t wanna go back to my own bed. Not tonight.”  
  
“Of course you can, moron.” Michael rolls his eyes, but affectionately. Karen can’t see it through a closed door, but she can  _feel_  it. She’s seen Michael look at Luke like that a million times.   
  
There’s rustling that sounds like Luke climbing into Michael’s bed, and that’s when Karen retreats. It suddenly feels like eavesdropping on lovers, even though Michael and Luke aren’t that. At least Karen doesn’t think they are. Maybe.  
   
*           *           *  
  
Karen and Daryl travel to London to visit Michael, and she jumps and squeals and pulls him into an enormous hug when she sees him. Michael does the same. He’s always had so much of her in him, and he hugs her back so tightly. He’s a little taller, even though it’s only been a few months. Luke looks the same, when they get to the house where the boys are staying. He’s still so small, but Karen’s met his older brothers and that will probably change soon. Michael is going to be mad if Luke ends up taller than him.  
   
They attend a concert, and the difference from the little band they used to be back home is so staggering, in such a short time. The guitars are louder, Luke’s voice is stronger, their stage presence is commanding and captivating. All four of them are full of confidence Karen has never seen in any of them before. They’re rock-stars. The venue is filled to the rafters with screaming teenage girls; Karen is overwhelmed by it all. She feels like she’s at a real rock concert, from a bygone era, and she nearly bursts with pride that it’s her baby up there on that stage. Sometimes, when they’re performing, Michael and Luke forget anyone else exists. They share a microphone, make goofy faces at each other while Calum sings, play each other’s guitars. Karen feels almost uncomfortable watching them. It feels like she’s peeking in on something personal and private, even though they’re doing it in front of thousands. Daryl notices too. Karen can tell. They don’t talk about it. They never have.  
   
Karen catches them, later. She doesn’t mean to. She and Daryl are staying in the house the boys have rented, and because there isn’t a spare bedroom Michael offered to bunk with Luke. He offered a little too quickly, too willingly, and Karen should have suspected what that meant. She didn’t. She gets up, in the night, to use the washroom, and walks by a window in the second storey hallway. Movement catches her eye and she stops, worried for just a moment because she’s heard stories of how dangerous London can be. What she sees is not a burglar or an axe murder on his way to cut them all to pieces in their sleep. It’s her son, and Luke, in the backyard below. On the pavement next to the pool.  
   
At first, they’re just talking, although Karen can’t figure out why they’re standing outside in the middle of the night having a conversation. Then Michael laughs, and Luke’s face lights up as bright as stadium lights, and realization hits Karen harder than it should have. Luke blushes. Michael reaches for him, sliding his arms around Luke’s small waist. Luke’s arms circle over Michael’s shoulders, draped causally, the fingers of his right hand playing idly in Michael’s hair, currently dyed dark brown. It isn’t something Karen should be watching. At all. But she’s rooted to the spot like her feet have been cemented to the carpet underneath her. She can’t leave, can’t look away.  
   
Michael spins them around, half dancing, half horse-play, and Luke laughs so loud Karen can hear it from two storeys up. Michael covers Luke’s mouth with his hand, silencing him; worried about waking everyone up. Then he moves his fingers away and replaces them with his lips, pressed against Luke’s. No possible way to conceive it as an act of friendship, as even remotely platonic. Karen’s stomach drops. She hears herself gasp, surprised even though she’s wondered about this since the first time Michael brought his new friend home. She can’t see Michael’s face, the spin turned him away from her, but she can see Luke’s and the look in his eyes when the kiss ends is so sunny and happy and  _loving_. It floors Karen to the spot even more than before. It makes her lose feeling in her hands for a moment, with how strongly it all smacks her in the face.  
   
Luke; sweet, shy, talented Luke, is in love with her son.  
   
And Michael loves him back. Karen doesn’t need to see Michael’s expression to know it matches Luke’s right now. Michael’s hand comes up, combing Luke’s blond hair back off his forehead and then cupping his cheek, bringing his face in close to kiss him again. Luke’s arms tighten around Michael’s neck and pull him in an inch closer, the kiss deepening. Becoming serious, becoming something inappropriate for Karen to be witnessing. Karen covers her own mouth with her hand and finally regains the ability to move. She tiptoes back into Michael’s room, bypassing the toilet, and crawls back into bed beside her snoring husband. She doesn’t sleep, though. She can’t. Her head is like a game of Boggle, thoughts all jumbled and shaken into undecipherable patterns. She’s happy for Michael, and worried, and curious about so many things – whether the rest of the band knows, if their fans know, if she was the last one left in the dark.  
   
*           *           *  
   
The boys are back in Australia for a stretch when it happens. Karen’s been half-expecting it for two years, but it still catches her off guard.  
   
“Can I, um. Can I talk to you?” Michael asks.  
   
Karen looks up from the shirt she’d been mending. Michael ripped it, it got caught of some piece of equipment backstage at one of their shows, and it’s one of his favorites. “Of course.” She pats the empty chair next to her, and Michael sits in it.  
   
It’s a long time before he speaks, and Karen doesn’t push. He’s like that, sometimes. He needs to take his time, so she lets him. “Um. I, kinda. Me and … and Luke.”  
   
Karen’s heart leaps into her throat. She puts her sewing down and takes a deep breath, before reaching out and curling her fingers over Michael’s forearm. “What about him?”  
   
Michael squirms. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere in the world than where he is right at this moment, and the thought makes Karen’s heart hurt a little. Michael’s always been able to tell her anything; everything.  
   
“You know, don’t you?” Michael asks, but it isn’t really a question. The words are spoken flatly; rhetorically.  
   
“I don’t know anything,” Karen lies. They both know it isn’t true.  
   
“I know you can see it.”  
   
“I never wanted to assume anything.”  
   
Michael nods. He inhales and it’s shaky; he’s nervous. “I asked him to be my boyfriend.”  
   
Karen presses her lips together and chooses her words carefully. He’s opening up, letting her into his private world, and she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and shut it down. “Wasn’t he already?”  
   
“So you did know.”  
   
“I thought, maybe. You never said anything.”  
   
Michael swallows; his throat clicks and Karen can hear it. “I didn’t …” he sniffs and stares down at his hands. “Didn’t want you to hate me.”  
   
It breaks Karen’s heart into a million pieces. Tears pool in her eyes, and in Michael’s too. They’re the same, his and hers. He’s always had her eyes. “Baby,” she whispers. She tugs on his arm, and he goes so easily, scoots closer in the wooden kitchen chair and melts against her chest, crying and scared in her arms like when he was five and had nightmares.  
   
“Never,” she promises, kissing the top of his head. “I could never hate you. Not for anything, but especially not for being in love.”  
   
“He’s not who I was supposed to love,” Michael says miserably.  
   
“Yes he is,” Karen argues, gently. “I know. I know he’s a boy, and it’s complicated. I know you’re famous now. I know there’s pressure, and reasons why none of this is easy. But you loved him from the moment you met him, Michael. You’re right, I can see it. I always could.”  
   
“Is Dad gonna be mad?” Michael worries.  
   
“No,” Karen soothes. “Of course not.”  
   
“Other people will. They won’t understand. They’ll think … I’m a freak.” He spits the last word out viciously, like he thinks it the truth of himself.  
   
“People who would think that aren’t worth your time. What did Luke say, when you asked him?” She doesn’t imagine it went well, given Michael’s current state. Karen loves Luke, but if he hurt Michael she’ll hate him just as easily.  
   
“We got into a fight,” Michael mumbles, quiet and dejected. “He’s worried about what would happen, if we made it all official. If people knew. He thinks it might ruin everything. The band, all the shit we’ve worked for.”  
   
Karen bites her lip and doesn’t know how to respond. She doesn’t want to say what is unfortunately the truth – that Luke could very well be right about that. She’s so wounded by all of it. He’s her baby, and she can’t fix this. It’s too impossible a situation. There is no right answer. “Do Calum and Ashton know?”  
   
Michael nods, his cheeks wet against her neck.  
   
“What do they think?”  
   
“I don’t know. We don’t talk about it, much. I mean, we joke around about it but we don’t … talk. Not seriously.” There’s a soft knock at the door, and Karen and Michael both look up but neither make any move to answer it. Then Michael’s phone buzzes, and he digs it out of his pocket and says, “It’s, um. him.”  
   
“Do you want him to leave?” Karen asks.  
   
Michael shakes his head no, and types a sentence into his phone that results in the door opening slowly and Luke poking his head inside.  
   
“Oh,” he says, when he sees Karen, and Michael against her with tears on his face. “Um. Sorry.”  
   
Karen shakes her head. “Come in.”  
   
Luke steps out of his shoes and does, awkward and shy about it. He’s taller, lately. He has that temporarily undergrown look about him, like one day he’ll tower over them all. “Mikey?” he asks softly.  
   
“I told her,” Michael says, not looking at him.  
   
“Oh,” Luke says again. He blinks at Karen. “I …”  
   
Karen shakes her head briefly. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”  
   
Luke’s cheeks are so red, but there’s a quiet determination about him. He came here with a mission and he’s afraid but he’s resolute in his intent to accomplish it. He kneels down on the floor next to Michael and touches his leg. “I’m so sorry.”  
   
Karen kisses Michael’s hair again and then makes him sit up, makes him face this. Luke’s expression is earnest, so vulnerable and serious. Michael sniffs and Luke reaches up to wipe the tears off his cheeks. He’s so gentle about it, the loving air about him again that Karen accidentally saw that night in London.  
   
“I love you,” Luke whispers. “You know that, right? It was never about that.”  
   
“Me too,” Michael whispers back.  
   
Karen makes a hasty exit that neither of them notice, but hangs back in the doorway just long enough to watch Luke get up off the floor and climb into Michael’s lap. Michael’s arms go around his middle and his face gets buried in Luke’s neck now, instead of Karen’s. She used to be the most important thing in Michael’s life, and now it’s Luke. It’s okay. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s the point of growing up. Luke hugs him back, kissing the side of his face and murmuring to him, words that Karen can’t hear. She understands their meaning, all the same.  
   
*           *           *  
   
It isn’t the first time Karen’s been to New York City, but she’s still excited. Mostly to see Michael. It’s been a while this time, with the band nearing the end of their first headlining world tour. It’s been a whirlwind of a year. Karen was at the show in Sydney but that was months ago, and she misses her baby. He runs at her and wraps her up in a big hug, laughing excitedly the entire time. Karen hopes he never loses that quality – that piece of himself that just feels his emotions bigger than anyone else and wears them so bravely on his sleeve. Karen doesn’t know where he got that kind of confidence. Certainly not from her. She’s always been more guarded. Michael is just open to everything.  
   
“Mama Bear!” he giggles. His stubble is rough against her face; he’s a man, now, but he’s still her little angel. He always will be.  
   
“I missed you, Baby Bear.”  
   
“You should come on tour with us next time.”  
   
“No one wants that,” Karen laughs.  
   
“I do!” Michael argues. He doesn’t really, but the sentiment is nice, anyway.  
   
Karen hugs the rest of the boys as well. They’re all enormous. It happened slowly so Karen didn’t really notice, and then a stretch of time away from them and it feels like they’ve all grown a foot. Luke, especially. He’s almost a full head taller than the rest of them, definitely taller than his brothers now, and his shoulders are impossibly broad. There’s more than stubble on his face, it’s close to a full beard, and Karen feels like she blinked and missed the transition. Somehow Luke turned from the small, quiet boy Michael used to bring home after school to the man who hugs her back almost as tight as Michael did. They all grew up, when she wasn’t looking.  
   
Luke spends the day with them, at Karen’s insistence. He wasn’t going to, wanting Michael to have time alone with his mum, but Karen won’t hear of it. Luke is part of Michael, and Karen wants them both.  
   
“You don’t need to pretend to be friends, you know. Not for me,” she tells them, later when they’re tucked into a booth in the back of a restaurant, in a private area where they can’t be seen. Luke and Michael are on one side, but sitting a respectable distance from each other.  
   
“Oh.” Michael looks at Luke and frowns. “I guess that’s true. We’re sort of used to it, in public.”  
   
The thought makes Karen sad, but she understands the way it needs to be. For now.  
   
“Wanna make out?” Michael jokes, poking Luke in the ribs, and Luke huffs in annoyance. Karen sees so easily past the exasperation to the affection underneath it. She’s done her fair share of the same thing. Daryl tells terrible jokes, usually obnoxiously bad puns, and Karen grumbles about it just as much as she loves it and hopes it never changes.  
   
“Not particularly,” he returns, but when Michael leans over and kisses his cheek, Luke wraps an arm around him so Michael can slump against his side. Michael smiles at Karen, sideways with his head on Luke’s shoulder. Her heart swells. It turns out there’s almost nothing better in the world than seeing her Michael in love – seeing him  _loved_.  
   
“Mum.” Michael rolls his eyes, as Karen dabs at hers with the corner of a cloth napkin when they water unexpectedly.  
   
“Sorry,” she says, wetly. “You two are very sweet.”  
   
Michael groans and looks away from her, his face against Luke’s neck. Luke just laughs and hugs him. Michael is yellowy-blond, right now, and Karen’s lost track of how many different colors there have been in between since she last saw him but this one is close enough to his natural shade that if she squints, the two of them look fifteen again. Just for a moment, back to the kids they were when they fell in love. Like in a John Green novel – slowly, and then all at once. So many things have changed, but the way they look at each other has stayed static, the same, since the very beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> [follow me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/)


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